Experiment i

This is the first experiment from the Ambient Literature project where we try out new ideas about linking literature to context on a small scale.

This project comes from Tom Abba and the Ambient Literature project team. It features three interconnected audio tracks which delve into the history of the area in London where Blackfriar’s Bridge crosses the Thames under the shadow of Carmelite House.

Experiment i consists of three audio pieces. Headphones are recommended.

* * *

This room did not exist thirty years ago.

Beneath your feet are offices, corridors, perched atop a site with a specific, resonant history. A site where people, just like you and I, go about their day.

Thirty years ago, this site was combed by detectives searching Blackfriars for clues to an impossible suicide.

A hundred years before, a lonely child built a life through the pages of sacred books.

A thousand years further back, and for centuries before then, the river roared outside.

One story.

Three accounts.

Brick

Book

Water

Experiment i was written by Tom Abba and Alyssia White. Audio production by Dominic Grant. Production input, design and direction by the whole Ambient Literature project team.

Experiments in Ambient Literature

Ambient Literature is an ongoing process merging academic research, practical experiments and technical development. We have three commissioned works that form the backbone of our project, but are keen to demonstrate practice as research through smaller iterations too. Each experiment will address a research question arising from our ongoing seminar series and be publicly presented as we move through the whole programme.

About the Ambient Literature project

Ambient Literature is a two-year collaboration between UWE Bristol, Bath Spa University and the University of Birmingham, established to investigate the locational and technological future of the book. Funded through a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the project is focused on the study of emergent forms of literature that make use of novel technologies and social practices in order to create robust and evocative experiences for readers. Read more >>

Join the Ambient Literature team at the Hay Festival, May 24th – June 3rd, where we'll be offering workshops, a discussion panel, and debuting a new work, Words We Never Wrote.More Information